A Timeline of Movies About Race
by J_Frank_Parnell | created - 3 weeks ago | updated - 3 weeks ago | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. The Birth of a Nation (1915)
TV-PG | 195 min | Drama, History, War
The Stoneman family finds its friendship with the Camerons affected by the Civil War, both fighting in opposite armies. The development of the war in their lives plays through to Lincoln's assassination and the birth of the Ku Klux Klan.
Director: D.W. Griffith | Stars: Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh, Henry B. Walthall, Miriam Cooper
Votes: 26,348 | Gross: $10.00M
2. Uncle Tom's Cabin (1927)
Passed | 144 min | Drama, History
Slavery tears apart a Black family in the South before the start of the Civil War.
Director: Harry A. Pollard | Stars: Margarita Fischer, James B. Lowe, Arthur Edmund Carewe, George Siegmann
Votes: 503
3. The Littlest Rebel (1935)
Approved | 73 min | Comedy, Drama, Family
Shirley Temple's father, a rebel officer, sneaks back to his rundown plantation to see his family and is arrested. A Yankee takes pity and sets up an escape. Everyone is captured and the ... See full summary »
Director: David Butler | Stars: Shirley Temple, John Boles, Jack Holt, Karen Morley
Votes: 1,678
4. Black Legion (1937)
Passed | 83 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A hard-working machinist loses a promotion to a Polish-born worker, he's seduced into joining the secretive Black Legion, which intimidates foreigners through violence.
Directors: Archie Mayo, Michael Curtiz | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan, Dick Foran, Erin O'Brien-Moore
Votes: 3,920
5. Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs (1943)
Approved | 7 min | Animation, Short, Adventure
So White flees from the wicked Queenie, wins over the thugs from Murder Inc. and meets her overrated Prince Chawmin'.
Director: Robert Clampett | Stars: Ivie Anderson, Mel Blanc, Ruby Dandridge, Vivian Dandridge
Votes: 1,562
6. Stormy Weather (1943)
Passed | 78 min | Comedy, Drama, Music
The relationship between an aspiring dancer and a popular songstress provides a retrospective of the great African-American entertainers of the early 1900s.
Director: Andrew L. Stone | Stars: Lena Horne, Bill Robinson, Cab Calloway and His Cotton Club Orchestra, Katherine Dunham and Her Troupe
Votes: 2,889
7. Song of the South (1946)
G | 94 min | Animation, Comedy, Family
The kindly story-teller Uncle Remus tells a young boy stories about trickster Br'er Rabbit, who outwits Br'er Fox and slow-witted Br'er Bear.
Directors: Harve Foster, Wilfred Jackson | Stars: Ruth Warrick, Bobby Driscoll, James Baskett, Luana Patten
Votes: 15,238 | Gross: $63.72M
8. Pinky (1949)
Approved | 102 min | Drama
A light-skinned black woman falls in love with a white doctor, though he is unaware of her true race.
Directors: Elia Kazan, John Ford | Stars: Jeanne Crain, Ethel Barrymore, Ethel Waters, William Lundigan
Votes: 3,414 | Gross: $4.20M
9. Intruder in the Dust (1949)
Approved | 87 min | Crime, Drama, Family
In 1940s Mississippi, two teenage boys and an elderly woman combine forces to prevent a miscarriage of justice and clear a black man of a murder charge.
Director: Clarence Brown | Stars: David Brian, Claude Jarman Jr., Juano Hernandez, Porter Hall
Votes: 2,657
10. No Way Out (1950)
Passed | 106 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Two hoodlum brothers are brought into a hospital for gunshot wounds, and when one of them dies the other accuses their black doctor of murder.
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz | Stars: Richard Widmark, Linda Darnell, Stephen McNally, Sidney Poitier
Votes: 6,284
11. High Society (1956)
Not Rated | 111 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
With socialite Tracy Lord about to remarry, her ex-husband - with the help of a sympathetic reporter - has 48 hours to convince her that she really still loves him.
Director: Charles Walters | Stars: Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Celeste Holm
Votes: 17,536 | Gross: $13.00M
12. The Defiant Ones (1958)
Approved | 96 min | Crime, Drama
Two chained-together escaped convicts, White and Black, must learn to get along in order to elude capture.
Director: Stanley Kramer | Stars: Tony Curtis, Sidney Poitier, Cara Williams, Theodore Bikel
Votes: 17,855
13. The Young Savages (1961)
Not Rated | 103 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A district attorney investigates three white teenagers accused of murdering a blind Puerto Rican kid.
Director: John Frankenheimer | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Dina Merrill, Edward Andrews, Vivian Nathan
Votes: 2,939
14. Paris Blues (1961)
Approved | 98 min | Drama, Music, Romance
During the 1960s, two American expatriate jazz musicians living in Paris meet and fall in love with two American tourist girls.
Director: Martin Ritt | Stars: Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Sidney Poitier, Louis Armstrong
Votes: 3,961 | Gross: $1.30M
15. West Side Story (1961)
Approved | 153 min | Crime, Drama, Musical
Two youngsters from rival New York City gangs fall in love, but tensions between their respective friends build toward tragedy.
Directors: Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise | Stars: Natalie Wood, George Chakiris, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn
Votes: 121,238 | Gross: $43.66M
16. The Intruder (1962)
PG-13 | 84 min | Drama
A charismatic "social reformer" rallies the white populace of a Southern town to oppose school integration, but he soon finds himself in a situation that he cannot control.
Director: Roger Corman | Stars: William Shatner, Frank Maxwell, Beverly Lunsford, Robert Emhardt
Votes: 3,905
17. Pressure Point (1962)
Not Rated | 91 min | Drama
A black prison psychiatrist is assigned the distasteful task of helping a paranoid American Nazi charged with sedition.
Director: Hubert Cornfield | Stars: Sidney Poitier, Bobby Darin, Peter Falk, Carl Benton Reid
Votes: 2,026
18. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Approved | 129 min | Crime, Drama
Atticus Finch, a widowed lawyer in Depression-era Alabama, defends a Black man against an undeserved rape charge, and tries to educate his young children against prejudice.
Director: Robert Mulligan | Stars: Gregory Peck, John Megna, Frank Overton, Rosemary Murphy
Votes: 332,990
19. The Cool World (1963)
105 min | Crime, Drama
A look at the horrors of Harlem ghetto slum life filled with drugs, violence, human misery, and a sense of despair due to the racial prejudices of American society.
Director: Shirley Clarke | Stars: Rony Clanton, Carl Lee, Yolanda Rodríguez, Clarence Williams III
Votes: 663
20. The Black Klansman (1966)
Not Rated | 88 min | Drama
After a black man's daughter is killed by the KKK, he seeks revenge by becoming a Klansman.
Director: Ted V. Mikels | Stars: Richard Gilden, Rima Kutner, Harry Lovejoy, Max Julien
Votes: 539
21. To Sir, with Love (1967)
Approved | 105 min | Drama
Idealistic engineer-trainee and his experiences in teaching a group of rambunctious white high school students from the slums of London's East End.
Director: James Clavell | Stars: Sidney Poitier, Judy Geeson, Christian Roberts, Suzy Kendall
Votes: 20,434 | Gross: $42.43M
22. In the Heat of the Night (1967)
Approved | 110 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
A black Philadelphia police detective is mistakenly suspected of a local murder while passing through a racially hostile Mississippi town, and after being cleared is reluctantly asked by the police chief to investigate the case.
Director: Norman Jewison | Stars: Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger, Warren Oates, Lee Grant
Votes: 83,594 | Gross: $24.38M
23. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)
Approved | 108 min | Comedy, Drama
A couple's attitudes are challenged when their daughter introduces them to her African-American fiancé.
Director: Stanley Kramer | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier, Katharine Hepburn, Katharine Houghton
Votes: 48,945 | Gross: $56.70M
24. Uptight (1968)
M | 104 min | Drama, Thriller
In this landmark collaboration between activist and actress Ruby Dee and director Jules Dassin, Black revolutionaries are betrayed by one of their own. Based on the 1935 classic "The Informer."
Director: Jules Dassin | Stars: Raymond St. Jacques, Ruby Dee, Frank Silvera, Roscoe Lee Browne
Votes: 966
25. Putney Swope (1969)
R | 84 min | Comedy
The board of directors at a Madison Avenue ad agency must elect a new chairman. In the maneuvering to make sure that enemies don't get votes, all the members accidentally cast their ballot for the board's token black man, Putney Swope.
Director: Robert Downey Sr. | Stars: Arnold Johnson, Stan Gottlieb, Allen Garfield, Archie Russell
Votes: 4,362 | Gross: $2.73M
26. Tick, Tick, Tick (1970)
G | 100 min | Action, Crime, Drama
Racial tensions threaten to explode when a black man is elected Sheriff of a small, racially divided town in the deep south.
Director: Ralph Nelson | Stars: Jim Brown, George Kennedy, Fredric March, Lynn Carlin
Votes: 1,362 | Gross: $1.24M
27. The Landlord (1970)
PG | 112 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
At the age of 29, Elgar Enders (Beau Bridges) "runs away" from home. This running away consists of buying a building in a black ghetto in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn. Initially, his ... See full summary »
Director: Hal Ashby | Stars: Beau Bridges, Lee Grant, Diana Sands, Pearl Bailey
Votes: 3,089 | Gross: $0.96M
28. Joe (1970)
R | 107 min | Drama, Thriller
Two men--wealthy conservative Bill and far-right factory worker Joe--form a dangerous bond after Bill confesses to Joe about murdering his daughter's drug-dealer boyfriend.
Director: John G. Avildsen | Stars: Peter Boyle, Dennis Patrick, Susan Sarandon, Patrick McDermott
Votes: 4,206 | Gross: $19.32M
29. Punishment Park (1971)
R | 91 min | Drama, Thriller
"Punishment Park" is a pseudo-documentary purporting to be a film crews's news coverage of the team of soldiers escorting a group of hippies, draft dodgers, and anti-establishment types ... See full summary »
Director: Peter Watkins | Stars: Patrick Boland, Kent Foreman, Carmen Argenziano, Luke Johnson
Votes: 7,635
30. Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971)
R | 97 min | Action, Crime, Drama
After saving a Black Panther from some racist cops, a black male prostitute goes on the run from "the man" with the help of the ghetto community and some disillusioned Hells Angels.
Director: Melvin Van Peebles | Stars: Melvin Van Peebles, Hubert Scales, John Dullaghan, Simon Chuckster
Votes: 5,868 | Gross: $15.18M
31. The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1973)
PG | 102 min | Action, Drama, Crime
A black man plays 'uncle Tom' in order to gain access to CIA training, then uses that knowledge to plot a new American revolt.
Director: Ivan Dixon | Stars: Lawrence Cook, Janet League, Paula Kelly, J.A. Preston
Votes: 1,567 | Gross: $1.00M
32. Coonskin (1974)
R | 100 min | Animation, Action, Comedy
Rabbit, a country-born trickster, takes over the organized crime racket in Harlem, facing opposition from the institutionalized racism of the Mafia and corrupt police.
Director: Ralph Bakshi | Stars: Barry White, Charles Gordone, Scatman Crothers, Philip Michael Thomas
Votes: 3,750
33. Cornbread, Earl and Me (1975)
PG | 95 min | Drama, Sport
A 12-year-old is traumatised by the murder of his friend, a star basketball player.
Director: Joseph Manduke | Stars: Moses Gunn, Rosalind Cash, Bernie Casey, Madge Sinclair
Votes: 1,060 | Gross: $0.78M
34. Roots (1977)
TV-14 | 74 min | Biography, Drama, History
A dramatization of author Alex Haley's family line from ancestor Kunta Kinte's enslavement to his descendants' liberation.
Stars: LeVar Burton, Robert Reed, John Amos, Louis Gossett Jr.
Votes: 18,886
35. Killer of Sheep (1978)
80 min | Drama
Set in the Watts area of Los Angeles, a slaughterhouse worker must suspend his emotions to continue working at a job he finds repugnant, and then he finds he has little sensitivity for the family he works so hard to support.
Director: Charles Burnett | Stars: Henry G. Sanders, Kaycee Moore, Charles Bracy, Angela Burnett
Votes: 7,539 | Gross: $0.40M
36. Trading Places (1983)
R | 116 min | Comedy
A snobbish investor and a wily street con artist find their positions reversed as part of a bet by two callous millionaires.
Director: John Landis | Stars: Eddie Murphy, Dan Aykroyd, Ralph Bellamy, Don Ameche
Votes: 165,869 | Gross: $90.40M
37. Mississippi Burning (1988)
R | 128 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Two F.B.I. Agents with wildly different styles arrive in Mississippi to investigate the disappearance of some civil rights activists.
Director: Alan Parker | Stars: Gene Hackman, Willem Dafoe, Frances McDormand, Brad Dourif
Votes: 111,106 | Gross: $34.60M
38. The Color Purple (1985)
PG-13 | 154 min | Drama
A tale spanning forty years in the life of Celie, an African-American woman living in the South who survives incredible abuse and bigotry.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Danny Glover, Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey, Margaret Avery
Votes: 97,400 | Gross: $98.47M
39. Colors (1988)
R | 120 min | Action, Crime, Drama
An experienced cop and his rookie partner patrol the streets of East Los Angeles while trying to keep the gang violence under control.
Director: Dennis Hopper | Stars: Sean Penn, Robert Duvall, Maria Conchita Alonso, Randy Brooks
Votes: 29,836 | Gross: $46.62M
40. Do the Right Thing (1989)
R | 120 min | Comedy, Drama
On the hottest day of the year on a street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, everyone's hate and bigotry smolders and builds until it explodes into violence.
Director: Spike Lee | Stars: Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Richard Edson
Votes: 112,477 | Gross: $27.55M
41. Driving Miss Daisy (1989)
PG | 99 min | Comedy, Drama
An old Jewish woman and her African-American chauffeur in the American South have a relationship that grows and improves over the years.
Director: Bruce Beresford | Stars: Morgan Freeman, Jessica Tandy, Dan Aykroyd, Patti LuPone
Votes: 117,592 | Gross: $106.59M
42. Glory (1989)
R | 122 min | Biography, Drama, History
Robert Gould Shaw leads the U.S. Civil War's first all-black volunteer company, fighting prejudices from both his own Union Army, and the Confederates.
Director: Edward Zwick | Stars: Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington, Cary Elwes, Morgan Freeman
Votes: 144,505 | Gross: $26.83M
43. Boyz n the Hood (1991)
R | 112 min | Crime, Drama
Follows the lives of three young males living in the Crenshaw ghetto of Los Angeles, dissecting questions of race, relationships, violence, and future prospects.
Director: John Singleton | Stars: Cuba Gooding Jr., Laurence Fishburne, Hudhail Al-Amir, Lloyd Avery II
Votes: 154,718 | Gross: $57.50M
44. Malcolm X (1992)
PG-13 | 202 min | Biography, Drama, History
Biographical epic of the controversial and influential Black Nationalist leader, from his early life and career as a small-time gangster, to his ministry as a member of the Nation of Islam and his eventual assassination.
Director: Spike Lee | Stars: Denzel Washington, Angela Bassett, Delroy Lindo, Spike Lee
Votes: 102,073 | Gross: $48.17M
45. Amistad (1997)
R | 155 min | Biography, Drama, History
In 1839, the revolt of Mende captives aboard a Spanish owned ship causes a major controversy in the United States when the ship is captured off the coast of Long Island. The courts must decide whether the Mende are slaves or legally free.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Djimon Hounsou, Matthew McConaughey, Anthony Hopkins, Morgan Freeman
Votes: 82,822 | Gross: $44.18M
46. American History X (1998)
R | 119 min | Crime, Drama
Living a life marked by violence, neo-Nazi Derek finally goes to prison after killing two black youths. Upon his release, Derek vows to change; he hopes to prevent his brother, Danny, who idolizes Derek, from following in his footsteps.
Director: Tony Kaye | Stars: Edward Norton, Edward Furlong, Beverly D'Angelo, Jennifer Lien
Votes: 1,186,709 | Gross: $6.72M
47. Bamboozled (2000)
R | 135 min | Comedy, Drama, Music
A frustrated African-American TV writer proposes a blackface minstrel show in protest, but to his chagrin, it becomes a hit.
Director: Spike Lee | Stars: Damon Wayans, Savion Glover, Jada Pinkett Smith, Michael Rapaport
Votes: 12,353 | Gross: $2.27M
48. The Boondocks (2005–2014)
TV-MA | 22 min | Animation, Action, Comedy
Brothers Huey and Riley Freeman experience a culture clash when they leave Chicago to move in with their grandfather in the suburbs.
Stars: Regina King, John Witherspoon, Gary Anthony Williams, Cedric Yarbrough
Votes: 35,745
49. Get Out (I) (2017)
R | 104 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
A young African-American visits his white girlfriend's parents for the weekend, where his simmering uneasiness about their reception of him eventually reaches a boiling point.
Director: Jordan Peele | Stars: Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Bradley Whitford, Catherine Keener
Votes: 697,434 | Gross: $176.04M
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